Blame Merkel, not Cameron, for Juncker Mess

This is an extraordinarily important moment in recent European history. Europe is at a cross-roads. Throughout the euro crisis there has been an unresolved tension between two different visions of what is the appropriate relationship between the countries of Europe. Should the EU be an association of self-governing nation states in which each country is responsible for bearing the cost of its own economic adjustment? Or should it be a federal system with greater risk-sharing between member states determined by a central political authority?

Associated Press

British Prime Minister David Cameron looks at German Chancellor Angela Merkel after a group photo of heads of state at a G7 summit in Brussels last week. The two leaders cannot agree about the candidacy of former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker to head the European Commission.

In my Europe File column for Monday’s paper, I explain how this tension has now spilled into the two big debates currently dominating the European agenda: the battle over the next president of the European Commission and the question of whether or not the ECB should start printing money to combat low inflation. Both debates are in essence about the trade-offs between risk-sharing and sovereignty. One is a political issue whose subtext is economic; the other an economic debate with political consequences.

This is the context in which David Cameron’s aggressive opposition to Jean-Claude Juncker’s opposition to the commission presidency must be seen. The British prime minister has been widely criticized for taking such a vocal stand against the former prime minister of Luxembourg. European commentators have accused him of a strategic misjudgment, arguing that he has picked a fight he may not win. Even some prominent euroskeptics in the U.K. have accused him of focusing on personality rather than policy.

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But this criticism is misplaced. Mr. Cameron’s problem with Mr. Juncker has never really been about personality or policy. Sure, Mr. Cameron doesn’t regard Mr. Juncker as an ideal candidate. But nor does anyone else. Like many senior European policymakers, U.K. officials doubt whether Mr. Juncker’s temperament or lifestyle are suited to such a high-pressure role. And of course, the U.K. is alarmed by some of Mr. Juncker’s previous support for Euro-federalism.

But Mr. Cameron’s real problem is with the process that made Mr. Juncker the front-runner for the job. The EU Treaties are clear: it is up to European leaders to nominate a candidate to run the European Commission, albeit “taking account” of the outcome of the European elections; the European Parliament then gets to ratify or reject the entire commission. Yet Mr. Juncker is being foisted on the European Council by the European Parliament as a result of a back-room deal between the major European parliamentary groups to support the appointment of the nominated lead candidate—or Spitzenkandidat—of whichever party won the most seats in last month’s elections.

This is not a beltway issue, a typical Brussels power game in which the wise leader simply plays along and tries to secure the best deal. It’s an astonishing power grab by the Brussels institutions that would fundamentally alter the relationship between the EU and its member states. Conceding this issue of principle would guarantee that future commission presidents will claim a mandate to claw greater executive powers, ensuring a slide towards federalism never envisaged in the treaties. The commission would become politicised, which some hotheads in Brussels and peripheral countries might welcome but which would potentially destroy the EU’s credibility in the exercise of its wide regulatory and dispute-resolution powers, which require it to apply rules fairly and without regard to political affiliations.

Those siren euroskeptic voices telling Mr. Cameron that it is OK to do a deal with Mr. Juncker are trying to lure him into a trap. They know that if Mr. Cameron loses this battle not only will he be politically damaged but the EU would have taken a giant step towards precisely the kind of “ever closer union” that he has promised to resist—over the heads of the U.K. public. If Mr. Juncker is appointed, there is no way Mr. Cameron can go into a referendum on U.K. membership offering only piecemeal reforms; the bar will have been set almost impossibly high.

That is why the real criticism for the current impasse should be levelled not at Mr. Cameron but at those EU leaders who agreed to the Spitzenkandidat process in the first place, in some cases despite deep misgivings. Chief among these is German leader Angela Merkel. Her decision to support Mr. Juncker’s candidacy ahead of the European elections looks entirely cynical. Throughout the euro crisis, she was adamant that national institutions are the true source of political legitimacy in Europe. She has consistently proposed inter-governmental rather than supra-national solutions, much to the frustration of euro-federalists. Yet she went along with a federalist ruse designed to confer bogus legitimacy on the commission president.

She did so largely out of political calculation. Partly, she backed Mr. Juncker because the centre-left socialist block had already picked a Spitzenkandidat and she didn’t want to be accused during the election of opposing greater European democracy. She also went along with the plan because she assumed it would be easy to throw Mr. Juncker under a bus when the elections were over—as she duly tried to do within hours of the vote being counted, at a dinner of EU leaders.

But Mrs. Merkel under-estimated the head of steam that built behind the Spitzenkandidat process during the election campaign among members of the European Parliament, among many smaller countries and in Germany itself, where two debates featuring all the Spitzenkandidaten were broadcast live on German mainstream TV. She also under-estimated how difficult some who had pledged to honor the process would find it to break their word. And she may have under-estimated the difficulty of finding an alternative candidate that the EU council and parliament could rally around.

The reality is that Mrs. Merkel has landed herself and the EU in an invidious position. Plenty of EU leaders share the UK’s reservations about Mr. Juncker, whether on the grounds of policy, personality or process, including those of Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Hungary and the Baltic states. Few believe that Mr. Juncker has any real democratic claim on the job. Even in Germany, only 7% of voters knew he was a candidate, according to a pre-election poll for the magazine Bild. Besides, in most countries, the elections were fought as referendums on national governments. Indeed, Mr. Juncker—unlike his opponents—didn’t even stand for the European Parliament; he was, quite literally, elected by nobody.

But it is hard to divorce the choice of any new candidate from the debate over what policies the European Commission should pursue. France and Italy have already made clear they want the new commission to relax the EU’s fiscal rules, anathema to Germany; some of the smaller peripheral countries supporting Juncker saw him as an ally during the euro crisis and may be hoping for measures to boost “solidarity.” Meanwhile Mr. Juncker is busily trying to strike deals in the council and parliament that would allow him to get the job on a majority vote.

Mrs. Merkel has proved a remarkable politician during the crisis, her innate caution and willingness to play for time while she tries to forge consensus and prepare German public opinion has served her well. Perhaps she will succeed again. But putting this genie back in the bottle looks dauntingly hard—and the stakes could hardly be higher.

Comments (5 of 11)

Under British law the appointment of Juncker & the back door power grab by the commission would shift power from national governments to the European Parliament without voters approval. This will automatically trigger a referendum in the UK, this is why Cameron was so opposed to the move by the commission as they have now forced him to give what he & all the other PRO-EU party's in the UK have been trying to prevent.

8:04 pm June 14, 2014

Nick wrote :

I strongly disagree with the author.
Many people in Europe, and not only in smaller or crisis-stricken countries, are understandably upset because European institutions are not democratic, dictating terms to them from Brussels. People feel that they have no say and that they are losing their national sovereignty. The loudest criticism of this state of affairs is heard in Britain, where people complain that they never elected the people in the Commission who now tell them how to behave. This is creating an existential crisis in the EU.
EU institutions, and especially one of the most important positions that of the Commission President, must be legitimized in the eyes of the people. The electorate must have more say in who will lead them. And the only way to achieve this is through the European Parliamentary Elections.
Is the process that brought Mr. Juncker to the foreground the best that we could have? Of course not. But improving it requires changes to the EU treaties. That is almost impossible in the current political climate, mainly because of the resistance of countries like Britain.
So, on one hand British leaders complain about how undemocratic is the EU, and on the other hand dismiss a candidate who came out of a democratic process, which although flawed, is the best that can be achieved without treaty changes, which they themselves object to undertake. Isn't this hypocrisy?
In almost all countries I know, leaders are elected via a parliamentary majority. Why not the President of the Commission?
Indeed, EU Parliamentary Elections are more national in nature. Indeed, most voters did not know of Mr. Juncker. But they did vote for their MEPs, didn't they? Those members of parliament were democratically elected didn't they?
In most democracies, people don't directly vote for their leader. Especially in the U.S, there is an indirect system by which the president is chosen. So what's the difference here? Members of parliament, all democratically elected, have the ultimate say on who the EU leader would be. It's an indirect way of choosing your leader, better if I may say so, than the U.S. one which led to the fiasco of Mr. Bush getting less votes and yet becoming the president in 2000. Why better? Because Mr. Juncker did indeed win parliamentary majority. His party did get the most votes.
What would be like a repeat of the Mr. Bush election is if now the EU Council, much like the Supreme Court in the U.S, throw him out and choose a less popular candidate, or worse somebody completely out of the blue, in order to "please" everyone. This is not how democracy works. You say that "politicizing" the Commission is wrong. But this is how democratic institutions should work. In the open. In the political arina. Backroom deals in dark rooms, who are structured to "please" everyone and are the result of a compromise,are not what people mean by democracy. And this is how the Council works? Backroom deals are the norm. Does the electorate get to hear any of those discussions in the Council? Of course not. They are "too sensitive" for public consumption. "These people are stupid," they say, "we know better what's best for them."
European institutions need to be legitimized in the eyes of the people. They need to campaign for their policies in the open. Otherwise, they will not take into account the interests of the whole of Europe, but will keep trying to please their masters, i.e., the national interests of the large countries. This is why Mr. Cameron does not like the way things are going. He wants to keep his power. He wants to keep making backroom deals in dark rooms.
I say well done to the German Chancellor. It honors her the fact that despite the political risks, she chose to keep backing the democratic process that elected Mr. Juncker. It's a bold and dangerous position which was not easy for her to take. Well done.

9:47 am June 10, 2014

Anonymous wrote :

The EU as it is, represents a peaceful German victory;
Merkel and her predecessors have achieved what Adolphus had failed to do through force.
Some say Angela is the daughter of Adolphus: is this political symbolism or for real?

9:12 am June 10, 2014

Tim wrote :

Some good points in here about Merkel getting herself in a jam, but also some deliberate glossing over of the democratic nature of the process.

The author says: "Mr. Juncker is being foisted on the European Council by the European Parliament as a result of a back-room deal between the major European parliamentary groups "

It ignores the fact (apart from a reference to Merkel's flip-flopping) that 27 of the 28 Council members already endorsed the process and/or candidates. They are the ones who were in Rome (Socialists, 1 March), Dublin (EPP 7 March) or London (Liberals, 28 January) to nominate their parties' candidates.

And for those still insisting this is an undemocratic power grab, it's worth remembering that the European Parliament is democratically elected...

6:20 am June 10, 2014

Cathope wrote :

,,This candidate shall be ELECTED by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members"
art 17 p.7 Treaty of European Union

,,the European Parliament then gets to ratify or reject the entire commission.'' Simon Nixon in article